IN ARIZONA, DO WE NOW SEE a sad mutation of our once-beautiful América? Or do the scales fall from our eyes to reveal the true, gleeful, unabashed visage of a beast on which we ride?
WE OWE ARIZONA OUR THANKS for passing a series of persecutory laws over time that finally culminate in today’s cultural crisis. Boycotts, civil disobedience, and righteous outrage are sweeping the country as this self-proclaimed nation of immigrants is engaged in a fight over its heart and soul.
ARIZONA, the State of Denial, has spun into a legislative carnival of lunacy with the latest ethnic cleansing maneuver. Teachers with accents will be barred from teaching English, and Chicano Studies linked to terrorism/revolution and banned from schools.
ALL GUESTS AT THE ZOO and some imagine they are the keepers when they are the caged. They hoot like monkeys and point with rage.
IF A STATE WANTS TO RETURN TO AN ERA that the rest of the Union decided to move past long ago, then perhaps they ought to be allowed to bootstrap themselves into oblivion.
THIS MARCH, I’ll be presenting at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity’s Transforming Race Conference. This article provides the backstory for why I began the Unapologetic Mexican blog as well as prefaces my talk at the conference.
WE BELONG TO A PROUD LEGACY. We are tied to this land, we are descended from warriors, and Indian kings, and beautiful traditions y cultura that cannot be washed or stolen away by the dominant culture—though it surely tries…
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA, celebrated and prolific Chicano poet, has been awarded the PEN/Beyond Margins award for his latest work, Half of the World in Light.
“OUR NATION is debating a crisis on par with that which gave birth to the Revolution of Independence, The Reformation wars and the Mexican Revolution. Just as was the case then, this is a long overarching crisis in our economy, politics and culture.”
WHERE LIES OUR TRUE FIGHT? With people of different skin tones? With people who use different word sounds to express their dreams, their pain, their hope, their hunger? Or with those who move hugely and cloaked over with flag and legal document, drawing blood worldwide?
THIS STORM is unfolding as it will, and we are yet to see how it will end. The electricity feels threatening at times. But here is a chance, now, finally to talk about the things we need to talk about. Which means the chance to make real change.
AN ACTIVIST SEEKING TO BRING a little balance to the Tea Party conversation infiltrates an event, gets the podium and enlists the utterly clueless crowd in a chant to send European immigrants back to where they came from.
VETERAN’S DAY. It means many things to many people, and all that can shift in a minute depending on which side of the sand you are on. But the quality in a human that causes them to sacrifice for other humans is an enduring, memorable, and crucial one.
THIS IS AND HAS BEEN a long, long war. This foul spirit that rises and repeats and seeks to make mi gente retreat has been tearing at the land and the skin of the face and the hands of my people for hundreds of years.
IN THIS “SECOND GOLD RUSH,” where it seems every store, site, and organization is moving forward quickly to access “The Latino Market,” and keeping in mind the arrival of Latino/Hispanic Heritage Month, it seems a good time to consider the question: What does it mean to be “Latino” today? Another chapter in the News With Nezua narrative.
House of Nezua
the XOLAGRAFIK theater!
